Month: May 2012

Music, Nature, Photography, Poetry

Each dusk has its music

by Kitty3 Comments on Each dusk has its music

Each dusk has its music;

Summer has symphonies.

Bird calls settle, diminish. Sonata ends

as the song of crickets rises, sparking

the rise of fireflies,

seeking mates upon the flashing earth.

(A sideshow! Sweet ballet of lust and creation:

seeker and sought,

rose-scented pilgrimage,

light and sound and smell commingling…)

And then spring peepers, the third movement chorus—

a sound crying through the heart

to the deeper heart.

Wind whispers, caressing trees, gentling leaves:

hushed dream percussion.

Then all flow together: bird, cricket, peeper, breeze…

Light meets light and music recedes—

earth’s lullaby to her lonely

children, a nightly offering.

Take your seat; the show is free…

Add your song of

stillness and gratitude.

 

(Crickets and Spring Peepers together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWFjhEYXbbU&feature=related )

 

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without the author’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors. Thank you, and gentle peace.

Daily Round, Full Moon Cottage, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Slow Life

First Person, Present

by Kitty13 Comments on First Person, Present

A fullness of life surrounds and infuses Full Moon these days; I can almost hear the carbon dioxide-fueled photosynthesis occurring all around me. And taking in all the oxygen that the green life is sending out in return is intoxicating (or maybe it’s the wine we’ve been sharing on the back deck at day’s end)…I’m reminded, daily, that all of life, all of nature–which includes us, but in which we are not dominant–is neither good nor bad, but only sacred and blessed. The only response I can make is yes, thank you.

Our world is a nursery, over-spilling with new life: flowers, birds, insects, trees, fruits, and vegetables are being born everywhere. Fields have been plowed and seeds sown, nests are full and my gardens are overflowing (a sure sign it will be an autumn of thinning and replanting). For now, they throb with the buzzing bodies of bumble and honeybees. Swallowtails and monarchs flutter and chase among the gardens, and birds sing most of the day, into dusk.

Painted turtles have been wumbling down the driveway, scraping aside earth and digging little pockets for their eggs, and our friend and expectant father, the mallard drake, makes house calls every morning, checking-in on the nest.

The mystery that creates longer hours of sunlight but less time to accomplish everything I’d planned puzzles me, but naps help soothe the strain of the season’s higher math perplexities.

I continue to bike to London and back, most days. (That’s London, Wisconsin, about 4 miles north of Cambridge, and 25 miles west of Rome, in our dreamscape geography.) Life in the marshland and on the lake is just as opulent and full of grace.

This has been an amazing spring; heat and aridity may follow, but I can’t give energy to possibilities and dread when every moment is crammed with so much life. “Look at me,” says the world. Look here! And here! And here! And I think I could fall into this richness, this oxygenated greenness, and emerge on the other side, in some other Wonderland…

I try to be present to both the rising and falling of the year. “Now” is always my favorite time and as I get older, each new season astonishes me with its revelations. Each offers mystery and invites rituals; each stimulates creativity and inevitably, leads to silence.

A few years ago, at just this time of year and late in the day, I happened to be passing through the kitchen and glanced out the large windows facing west to see something magical happening on the lawn. A hatching was occurring, of insects so tiny and delicate that, as they ascended, the low, setting sunlight flashed through them and they became rising points of light. From the sky, hundreds of dragonflies appeared, swooping through the floating lights and consuming them, their own wings flashing and iridescent. The tiny lights continued to rise, the dragonflies to whirl and swirl through, feeding on them. Phillip joined me and we watched, for almost an hour, in silence.

Here we all are, so briefly, shining and consuming light, becoming light and feeding life in turn; how lovely to be part of the rhythm, this beautiful dance, around and around. Now is always my favorite season.

 

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without the author’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors. Thank you, and gentle peace.

Biking, Daily Round, Meditation, Nature, Photography, Spirit

Out For a Spin

by Kitty12 Comments on Out For a Spin

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle. ~ Ernest Hemingway

I was almost always outside when I was young—like most kids—unless I had “my nose in a book.” We played games, climbed trees, built seasonally appropriate forts (tree or snow), and kept ourselves occupied from dawn till the fireflies and our mother’s gentle whistle called us home.

At some point, I stopped climbing trees, and roller skating, and playing kick-the-can. Jumping rope isn’t as fun anymore, nor is my hula hoop.

But I still love to bike. I first learned how to maneuver a two-wheeler with training wheels on a little red Schwinn. When my father took off the training wheels and gave me an encouraging push into the back yard, I surprised him by running myself into a tree. The tree, I should say; there was only one, and he hadn’t pushed me towards it.

He revised his thinking and decided perhaps a wide open space would allow room for practice, so off we went to the acres of Washington Park, where, for a time, I ran into every tree he didn’t push me towards.

When I was eight, we lived in another town, and I attended another school and wore another uniform. I came home after my third grade Confirmation, where I’d agreed to be a “soldier of Christ,” (and had dreaded for weeks the “blow to the cheek” that in reality amounted to a playful tap) and was surprised to find a shiny new blue Huffy wrapped with ribbons and bows…

The bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything else in the world. ~ Susan B. Anthony, 1896 

Eventually I mastered biking, and I continue to feel a joy that pulses through every cell whenever I head down the road or trail on my bike. I no longer agree to being anyone’s soldier, but I’ll always associate biking with sacrament. Now I ride a Trek, a brand of bike designed (and formerly manufactured) a few miles from my home. I don’t race and I’m not out to do anything but get into the zen of lovely, rolling, bi-pedal meditation. Once I start, I can go for miles.

After your first day of cycling, one dream is inevitable. A memory of motion lingers in the muscles of your legs, and round and round they seem to go. You ride through Dreamland on wonderful dream bicycles that change and grow. ~ H.G. Wells, The Wheels of Chance

I have collected 18 years of trail passes from the Glacial Drumlin Bike Trail. It’s near our home and named after one of the land formations the glaciers formed as they rolled and crushed their way through our part of the state 25,000 to 10,000 years ago and then retreated, leaving behind lakes and land formations known as moraines, drumlins, eskers, kettles, and kames. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_landforms)

How could a land not be magical with those kinds of names given to its ridges, hills, and depressions? Biking 10 miles or so, I can see almost all of these, along with 2 rivers, a lake, and a wildlife area. (http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/wildlife/wildlife_areas/lakemills.htm)

There are many wonderful books about cycling. One of my all-time favorites is Miles From Nowhere, by Barbara Savage. (http://www.amazon.com/Miles-Nowhere-Round-Bicycle-Adventure/dp/0898861098)

When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking. ~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

There is a freedom and lightness of being that I feel when I bike through space and time. I never know who or what I’ll encounter, and I usually bring my camera so I can stop if the flow and scenery seem to invite it. It’s a peaceful and almost silent past time; I have biked my way through losses and healing, and joyful periods of my life, weaving—or reweaving—meaning.

This week, the wildflowers along the trail were lovely: the electric lavender of the wild phlox, the gentle pink of wild roses, wild onions, fading trilliums, deep rosy geraniums hiding in the shadows…there’s always something to soothe the heart and spirit.

Here are just a few photographs from a recent ride, or “a spin,” as my mother called it.

Maybe I’ll see you on the trail: I’m the one with the dreamy expression and camera, not racing and, usually, avoiding trees.

Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I have hope for the human race. ~ H.G. Wells

 

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without the author’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors. Thank you, and gentle peace.

Daily Round, Family, Gifts, Music

Life Music

by Kitty8 Comments on Life Music

 The morning began with a lovely solo sung by Riley, serving as her impromptu accompaniment to a loud siren hurtling down a country highway. She has a beautiful voice. Sometimes Phillip and I start a “howl song” just to have the pups join in. It seems to be a deeply bonding experience for them. A pack song, a family theme; an ancient call, heart to heart.

Music is almost always playing at Full Moon Cottage, just as it was in our childhood homes.

I was born with music inside of me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me—like food or water.  ~ Ray Charles

Phillip’s dad was in a Milwaukee barbershop quartet called the Cream City Four, and sang 30’s and 40’s standards in another group, when he wasn’t singing with Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera or directing church choirs. Phillip’s sister has had a successful career as an opera singer and is now a sought-after vocal and performance teacher. His other sister is an accomplished pianist, and his brother sings with the symphony chorus is Madison.

There was always music in my home, too. My mother listened to NPR from morning till dinner time. In those days, this meant that between Morning Edition and All Things Considered at day’s end, classical music was played all day long (except during Chapter-a-Day at noon). Both of my parents loved Broadway musicals, and my father had a special fondness for big band music. And then, late at night, jazz would be playing on the stereo as I drifted off to sleep.

I was always singing and “banging on the piano,” and later pursued a theater degree in part because of my love for musicals.

I can carry a tune; Phillip’s voice stops hearts. I’ve experience this “Phillip effect” for almost 20 years, and have seen it happen to others over and over. It is an amazing gift and I’m grateful every time I hear his voice and witness the way it touches people’s spirits.

Music is usually playing when I write, clean house, cook…we like every kind of music, and our CD collection is proof of this. We have it all arranged on lovely carousels that hold hundreds of  CD’s stacked vertically—500 CD’s per carousel—and then we can “program” the CD’s by genre, or artist, etc., and whether we want the music to shuffle and play random songs within the selected genre, play an entire album, etc. Very old-fashioned, almost a Victrola, but without the handle to wind…

We haven’t yet upgraded to digital music, and this is mostly due to the years we imagine passing while we burn  the CD’s and convert hundreds of old albums to digital signals. I imagine our hair turning white and walkers appearing in our hands as we trundle back and forth between our CD and album stash and the computer…and then I imagine finishing this Herculean task just in time to learn everything we’ve done is outmoded. (Kitty gasps; falls to floor; dies.)

No, wait! I couldn’t die at that point, because I have a Master List of music that I would like played at my Memorial Service…the service will have to last about a month at this point, but it will be a wonderful aural experience; I promise! If we can locate the right technology.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.  ~ Victor Hugo

Music heals; it stimulates and inspires; it changes us; it connects us and make us whole. I use music in my spiritual direction and I used it as a chaplain. There is a practice called “threshold singing.” It started here (http://www.thresholdchoir.org/), and promotes rehearsed, a capella songs offered to those waiting at the threshold between life and death. There are also harpists trained in “music thanatology,” and other musicians trained in techniques for accompanying those on healing journeys. You can read more about this here: (http://www.growthhouse.org/music.html)

I knew a nun who found a beautiful harp in the attic of her convent, had it restrung, polished and restored, and then taught herself to play it. She lugged it around to her city’s two large hospitals and played her harp for years, eventually receiving donations to purchase smaller, more portable harps.

It was no surprise that families and staff members at these hospitals felt the positive effects of her music, and she had some deeply graced experiences with patients as well. One woman lay in a coma that physicians had predicted she would remain within until her death. While the nun played her music just outside the patient’s room to soothe the family’s loss, the woman was gentled into wakefulness.  She later told the nun, “I was disappointed to still be here; your music led me to understand I was in heaven!”

Balfour Mount, one of the founders of Palliative Medicine in North America, wrote, “Music has touched the human soul across all boundaries of time, space, and genre…Perhaps, in its vibratory nature, music opens us to a greater appreciation of our essential connectedness to the cosmos, our oneness with all that is.” If you’ve ever watched one of the many flash mobs cause a breakout of spontaneous joy at a public gathering space, you know how music can affect and connect our spirits.

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ~ Berthold Auerbach

I love watching the crowds at the flash mobs: they stop and notice–something I fear our increasingly busy lives don’t allow us to do—and then they are delighted. Their inner children often come out to play. Here is one of my favorites, in Antwerp, when a flash mob performed “Do Re Mi” from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Sound of Music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k People often cry in response to such joyful invitations. Music can so quickly touch deep memories, unconscious needs, losses, and desires. And how healing it can be when we allow our bodies to move freely in response to the impetus of melody and rhythm.

And here is Ben E King’s Jerry Leiber’s, and Mike Stoller’s, Stand by Me, performed by musicians throughout the world: http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741, another lovely collaboration.

Music is vibration and so, at minute particle levels, are we; we’re bouncing particles, moving in waves, and everything is music. I wish we could hear more than the limited bandwidth we humans can manage, but I love the music of this beautiful cosmos that I’m able to hear: birdsong and rain, wind and beating wings, life’s breath, laughter, children’s voices, singing dogs, and my husband’s voice.

Many say that life entered the human body by the help of music, but the truth is that life itself is music. ~ Hafiz, Persian Sufi poet

 

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without the author’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors. Thank you, and gentle peace.

Becoming, Daily Round, Full Moon Cottage, Gardening, Gratitude, Loss, Photography, Transformation

All’s Right With the World

by Kitty10 Comments on All’s Right With the World

The year’s at the spring

And day’s at the morn;

Morning’s at seven;

The hillside’s dew-pearled;

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn;

God’s in His heaven—

All’s right with the world.

~ Robert Browning, Pippa Passes

 We are being gifted with glorious weather this week and it looks like it will continue for still another week as well. The rains were too heavy last weekend, but now we’ve had just enough to keep everyone happy, and plenty of warmth to beckon buds into bloom and songbirds to sing. The rose-breasted grosbeaks have returned, the hummingbirds have completed their extraordinary journey and are replenishing their energy at the feeders. I’ve heard orioles and seen them along the trial, but they haven’t yet come to the feeding station and I’m hoping to set out a few oranges this afternoon to draw them in and make them welcome.

Morning’s begin around five for us these days; birds vie for their chance at the worms, insects, and seeds, and the night creatures withdraw to the shadows edging the woods. The sun rises between 5 and 6 A.M. and the eastern view towards the river explodes with light. The acreage at Full Moon Cottage is hemmed in by curtains of willow leaves, ash trees, and pines, and all are illuminated at dawn, back-lit by gold and it is too much; I’m called to wordless stillness, staring at the beauty.

I’ve always loved this stanza of Browning’s. Though I don’t agree with his theological pronouns or geography, we’re all entitled to our perceptions of Holy Source and to orientations regarding its presence that give us peace…and the rest of the stanza is glorious. “Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language,” wrote Henry James, but a spring morning is equally captivating.

Just be, says the world; it is enough.

I sense a greater energy in myself, my partner and our 4-legged companions as the bright days lengthen; we all want to be out in it: the budding and blossoming, the light and shadow, the colors and connections.

The first poppy “popped” today as the tulips and trilliums are fading and dropping leaves. We’re well into the garden symphony’s first movement, the whirl of birth and life and death that happens and draws us in and reminds us we’re specifically flowing in the whirl ourselves: The duck eggs will hatch soon; the starling mother drowned in the rainstorm; her six eggs were therefore exposed to the cold and the life within perished…

Our mothers will be feted and honored less than they are due, but happily, this weekend; those of us who dreamed of children and were not blessed with them will mourn unrealized dreams…

It all mixes together and passes too quickly, all of it. Children grow up; gardens rise, bloom, and return to the earth; chances are taken and missed. I cannot remember all the words to the song the child within is singing, but I am certain it is a hymn to the dearness of what is–just this once, and fleeting–and a reminder that joy and pain, regret and rebirth, life and death mix and resurrect into new life. Again.

So I will sit in the garden outside my window and the garden of my life, and see the light and colors of what is here, and of what has come from what has come to pass.

And here is the oriole, orange and brilliant.

 

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without the author’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors. Thank you, and gentle peace.

Daily Round, Full Moon, Full Moon Cottage, Photography

Full Moon, Supermoon

by Kitty8 Comments on Full Moon, Supermoon

May’s Full Moon, which bloomed this past Saturday, was also a Supermoon, which occurs when the new moon or full moon is in alignment with the earth and sun, and the moon is also in its nearest approach to earth. It’s explained in far greater detail here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermoon.

Our home was christened Full Moon Cottage on the night of May’s Full Moon in 1997, as we lay on a mattress placed on the living room floor of our new home. We couldn’t sleep for the brilliant light shining in. The acreage we’d just agreed to love and cherish for as long we lived here was aglow with shadows and shining blooms.

I love the moon like Monet loved his water lilies. It is round, feminine, holy, enchanted, stilling, comforting and cyclical, all qualities I value.

The Supermoon played hide-and-seek behind a thick cover of clouds, but she appeared for a time between 11:00 and midnight. I sat on the hill of our backyard, near the river, and befriended this one, mysterious and particular dance of the moon. The wind blew with a chilling intensity, but I stayed peacefully present in my friend’s company, and managed to get a few interesting pictures. I don’t have a tripod and it’s very hard, with my little, inexpensive hand-held camera, to get clear, steady shots, but the Moon graced me with a few serendipitous poses.

Here are  a few more of the love notes sent between us that night. I think she would be pleased with these memory-images…

 

 

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without the author’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors. Thank you, and gentle peace.

Becoming, Daily Round, Gardening, Gifts, Nature, Photography, Slow Life, Writing

Odd Duck

by Kitty6 Comments on Odd Duck

The daily round brought many gifts this week, each of them a lovely surprise and all the more savored for their inbreaking, unexpected joy. “Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise,” wrote Alice Walker, a philosophy that fits our slow life at Full Moon Cottage very well. This week, though, was all about an abundance of surprise.

A lost manuscript was found through the wizardry of a computer detective’s hard work. It came back to me disguised by layers of alien encryption, but I’m slowly extracting my original words, and very happy to be doing so. The prodigal story has come home.

The second gift was brought by our UPS man one afternoon: three huge boxes containing a lovely old china set were sent to me by a dear friend. The china had belonged to her grandmother and I had admired it when I visited my friend last February, and then, true to my waning retention abilities, forgot about it. While it doesn’t suit my friend’s lifestyle, she wanted the china set to find a home with someone who would honor the history and connections it represents, and chose me. How wonderful is that? My spirit was overwhelmed and drenched in joy. And I love that it’s come with stories and pictures of the feisty Irish woman who originally owned it. These are safely tucked beside the china, ready to be shared and celebrated when we break bread with guests.

The third gift was learning that our duck friends have decided that the lupine-daisy-tulip garden is a fine place to build a nest and hatch their ducklings. This discovery came with its own adventure.

I took a break from my writing one morning. I was still in my pajamas, as I’d been writing since dawn. The day was overcast, so I thought I’d dash out, take a photo or two, stretch my muscles and return to my writing. I grabbed my camera and walked down to the garden where the tulips were brightly blooming.

Now, I know that telling myself I’ll just check a garden for a minute or two is always a lie. I kneel, or crouch, and begin to weed; my mind settles; I begin to meditate, wander to the next garden…the day ends and there I am, out in the gardens, all other tasks neglected, orphaned, forgotten.

So there I was, crouching beside the edges of the tulip garden when the female mallard suddenly flew out, a bluster of feathers and quacks erupting in my face. Both of us seemed to be miming the receipt of electric shocks for a few moments, and then she flew away, while I brought my breath, limbs, and heart back into a less adrenaline-fueled tachycardic rhythm. I crept a few steps forward and could see eight eggs in a nest, cleverly concealed. I used the telephoto lens to snap a quick photo before backing carefully away and returning to the house.

Now I was concerned I’d caused the vulnerable eggs to be abandoned, so I kept pacing and peeking from every window to see if mother mallard would return. She did, quickly, with her mate. (Their friend, whom I wrote about last week, was not with them.) They stood on the roof of our home and surveyed the territory.

I walked through the house, scanning in every direction, then back to the front door to search the southern wall of white pines. Oh-oh. The murder of crows from the woods were gathering; their scouts had sent word about the “Wild Woman,” as I’m pretty sure they refer to me, as we’ve had other run-in’s.

They’d observed my clumsiness in exposing the duck eggs and triumphantly cawed the news to the surrounding “murder.” Their gang had now flown in and were sitting high in the pines, waiting for their chance to attack.

You may have seen the episode of the PBS program, Nature, that featured crows and shared studies validating their startling intelligence. (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/introduction/5838/) The program also discussed crows’ ability to recognize faces and send messages regarding prey and enemies across miles.

They know my face, and they know we’re not on good terms. I don’t appreciate their attacks on songbirds’ nests, their harassment of my owl friend, their incessant cawing when something of apparent “news” is occurring. I find them interesting, brilliant, but rude and greedy. They don’t share well and they gossip.

I’m married to a biologist and we’re both keen on environmental and habitat protection; I know I’m not supposed to interfere in the natural order between predator and prey, but since I caused the mother mallard to flee the nest, my guilt made me feel I needed to protect the eggs till she was able to return. I stepped back into the yard. The crows began to scream. I walked forward and picked up a stick from a fallen ash branch. Their screams increased, so I mimicked them and waved my branch. “Get away! Get away!  Leave these young ones alone! Caw-caw-caw!”

Walking and waving, cawing, threatening, and eventually out-scaring the crows, they flew away. I turned back to see the mallard parents eyeing me with a mixture of concern and fascination. I assured them all was well, using a softer voice and pointing with my ash wand towards their nest, down the hill. “It’s OK, now; you can return…”

It was then I glanced beneath the skirt of pine trees and saw the legs of a neighbor, about an acre away, walking a dog back towards her home.

I realized my entire performance had been witnessed. Leaping around in my pajamas, cawing and waving branches, intimidating crows and then speaking duck.

I’ve never worried I’d become my mother; my fear has always been I’d become  my crazy “Great-Grandma Annie,” a thorough and distinct character in our family lore. It seems I can set aside the fear and embrace the reality.

In a week full of surprising gifts, I tried the idea of odd-duckness on for size. It fit.

And I like it.

Mother duck returned to her nest; we await the ducklings and hope their fragility will survive the dangers that greet their birth as excitedly as we do. I’ll try to respectfully let nature take its course.

But look out crows; and all you wild ones who would harm these ducklings: Great-Grandma Annie is watching. And she’s got a stick.

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without the author’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors. Thank you, and gentle peace.